St Andrew the Great
| St Andrew the Great | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Churchmanship | Low Church / Conservative Evangelical |
| Website | stag.org |
| Administration | |
| Diocese | Diocese of Ely |
| Clergy | |
| Vicar(s) | Alasdair Paine |
St Andrew the Great is an Anglican Evangelical Church in central Cambridge. The church has a conservative evangelical tradition and participates in the Anglican Reform movement. The congregation includes many Cambridge residents, overseas visitors and students from Cambridge University. The current vicar is Alasdair Paine. Former vicars include Mark Ashton.
The church is open for public services every Sunday: 10am, 11.30am (during University term time) and 5pm. Services are roughly an hour in length, with a strong emphasis on relevant Bible teaching. There are six age-banded Sunday school groups for children and also evening meetings for undergraduates (Tuesdays), 20s-30s (Wednesdays), internationals (Thursdays) and teenagers (Fridays and Sundays).
A church on the site of St Andrew the Great is first mentioned by name in 1200AD. Little is known of the first building, which was probably a wooden structure, and was replaced with a more substantial stone building in the early 13th century. During the 16th century the church was a centre of Reformation preaching, with William Perkins the "lecturer" from 1585-1602.
A third building was built on the site after 1650, largely at the expense of Christopher Rose (twice mayor of Cambridge, in 1637 and 1654). To accommodate a growing congregation, the building was entirely rebuilt in 1842, to a 15th century East Anglian style by Ambrose Poynter.
By the early 1980s the building faced redundancy, as the parish population had dwindled. However, at the same time the congregation of the Round Church, Cambridge, was looking for a new home. They had met at "The Round" for over 800 years but congregational growth led them to run out of space. They raised the money to renovate St Andrew the Great, installing a new gallery, baptistry and rooms, and moved there in 1994. The parish associated with the church is now that of the Round Church, officially known as "Holy Sepulchre with All Saints".
Since then, the church has been involved in three church 'grafting' schemes, to all Saints' Little Shelford (1997), Christ Church Cambridge (2004) and St Matthew's Cambridge (2008). In each case a minister on the staff moved with a substantial number in the congregation to join the existing congregation in those places.
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Wikipedia